


with you, always

by shipwreckinabottle



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, man that final scene got me right in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 15:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10193087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwreckinabottle/pseuds/shipwreckinabottle
Summary: “No, Captain. You can’t. I’ll always be here.”;;  When Rip Hunter wakes up almost two days later, his Gideon is no more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man. You ever had that feeling when something just hits you out of nowhere and it hits you REALLY hard and at first you're like dude I'm watching this show for the superhero stuff and cheese-y shit and then it's like NO YOU'RE NOT and BAM and I'm suddenly all choked up and I'm trying my hardest not to sob and ASKDJKASDKJA
> 
> *breathes*
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy.

“ _You were with me all of these days in this prison. You were what saw me through, just as you have guided me to safety through all our years on the ship.”_  
  
_“This is my purpose, Captain.”_  
  
_“Yeah, but… if this place isn’t real, then does that mean that you don’t exist either?”_  
  
_“Not in this form, no. But unless you let me go, you won’t either. Not in any way that matters.”_  
  
_“No… I can’t leave you, Gideon.”_  
  
_“No, Captain. You can’t. I’ll always be here."_

* * *

When Rip Hunter wakes up almost two days later, his Gideon is no more.  
  
_You did it,_ Jax tells him afterwards, _a virus evil-you left behind, I had to do a full reboot or risk the lives of everyone else onboard this ship. I did what I had to.  
_

A full reboot activates a complete purge of Gideon’s primary drives; it includes all her navigational functionalities, time shift assessments, and amongst most of her other primary functions – her stored memory drives.  
  
A simple procedure. The first chapter in a time master’s handbook. Simple and inconsequential, it allows the captain of any A.I controlled ship to regain their core functions in case of a primary malfunction.  
  
Between Gideon’s memories and the rest of the Waverider’s crew, it wasn’t too hard a decision at all.  
  
Jax made the right call. After all, Gideon was only an A.I. She was designed only to serve the Waverider.  
  
It wasn’t like they were losing another crew member.  
  
Except to him, it was.  
  
The secondary reboot brought Gideon back. But not _his_ Gideon.

* * *

He remembers little of his time trapped inside his own mind.  
  
Blurry instances, filled with pain, fear, hopelessness.  
  
They haunt him on most nights, and he wakes up screaming, hands twisting into the below sheets, soaked cold with sweat.  
  
But she is there with him. Always. Even in the most terrifying of nights.  
  
Speaking to him through the intercoms.  
  
Standing right outside his glass cage.  
  
Seated right beside him.  
  
He sees her in those dreams, and as fearsome and as painful as they are, he greets them with welcoming arms.  
  
Because she’s always there with him. Even on the nights they haunt him most.  
  
But like any other dream, they too soon fade.  
  
A few months later, Jax finds something hidden deep within Gideon’s core code. Something a mechanical and computing impossibility. A piece of code Gideon managed to leave behind. A strand of code so small, it’s barely an imprint upon a vast ocean of data.  
  
A single line of binary code. It is all she managed to leave behind.  
  
01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000  
  
But to him, it's so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> Step 1.) Google for a binary translator. 
> 
> Step 2.) Copy and paste that line of text inside. 
> 
> Step 3.) Select translate Binary To Text. 
> 
> Step 4.) Smile. Or cry. 
> 
> https://binarytranslator.com/
> 
> https://www.qbit.it/lab/bintext.php
> 
> Either one works.


End file.
